Interview: Bill Gates

“CES wasn’t only about crazy gadget news and booth tours – we also scored a second chance to sit down with our new best friend Bill Gates and ask him all about the big announcements he made during his keynote last Wednesday. Read on to find out what he had to say about online video download subscription services, whether or not he was happy with the launch of the Xbox 360, which Xbox 360 games he’s been playing, how he still thinks there’s time to avoid a format war between Blu-ray and HD-DVD, why he doesn’t think that Apple’s switch to Intel chips makes a difference for Microsoft, and how he is now, finally, a Treo user.”

While it may be fine for computer monitors where the signal only has to go a foot or two over a wire, and doesn’t need to be stored indefinately, television signals actually have to be broadcast, and stored for long periods of time, both in a home format (hd-dvd, blu-ray, etc), and also stored by the networks and cable stations.

Neither group would take well to having to upgrade recording, playback, and monitors every few years. Most people don’t even have HDTVs yet, and far too few stations outside of cities have hdtv broadcast ability of any decent level. Having them switch would probably cost enough to drive over the air network affiliates to go out of business and make most people balk.

Um, what? Computer monitors have been stuck at their current resolutions for at least a decade, maybe two. Hell, the last big jump (1600×1200 -> 1920×1200) only happened because they made the screens wider…

Within my price range all the monitors could handle 1280×1024 for as long as I can remember having 17″ monitors. My last one was supposed to be able to support up to that high, but it was a cheapo monitor that wouldn’t handle it for some annoying reason, I’m glad I replaced it 🙂 .

Indeed, but what would be even cooler if you ask me is not making higher resolutions, it’s actually widening the colours available.

Today we’re stuck with RGB. Why not aim for a CMYK monitor which might enable more colours and make things more real. I’m not an expert on these things, but going for an even more wide format would even be cooler. In Offset Printshops they got like 7 colours and stuff, and they have Pantone colours available for instance. This is what really would make things hot if you ask me.

This, however would probably be very difficult for programmers to utilize, but it might be possible. Assuming someone makes a CMYK –> RGB translator which works actively in the gfx card to translate all old code before getting sent to the monitor.

I hope this becomes the next real thing, it’s really what differs analogue from digital as far as my eyes can see for now. =)